March Week 4

Has this blog become a Jaclyn Moriarty fanblog?
Maybe. I’m not sure, but I feel obliged to talk about her again. Sorry!

The reason is that I finished her latest book: The Cracks in the Kingdom. I am not good at writing reviews but I can say this: I have not been able to stop reading. Even though I had to study really hard. The only negative thing that I have to say is that the book ended. It’s second in a trilogy, and obviously just came out, so I won’t know what happens until next year.. I will not hesitate to order it immediately when it’s available though.
She also organised a contest on the blog she was writing on. I found out about that on Friday, and had to have finished it on Saturday night. That was stressful, since I really really wanted to do it. I mean come on it's Jaclyn Moriarty we're talking about! So I finished my 'story' (the assignment was to write a letter, so it's not really a story, but okay) on Saturday afternoon and sent it immediately. It was scary, but it felt so good that I did it. And now we wait for the results! I have no idea if a lot of people participated or if there were like five people, so I have no idea how much chance I have.. Well, at least I tried! I'll keep you up to date.

The weather was great again and there are lots of cool flowers in my mum's garden, look:

And a kitty! Miep!

In other news: I had an exam on Old Norse, which is basically modern Icelandic, and this is how it went:

Yes I am using John Bacchus gifs to show my emotions. I feel obliged to do this since I have learned how to make gifs and there aren’t many people making George Gently gifs, let alone use them.

This was also the last week of March. Here are the photos I shared on Instagram (where you can also follow me if you like!):

It's a lot of Miep isn't it? And yes, I started another book by Jaclyn Moriarty yesterday. This is my favourite!

Hey guys, I wanna know how your month has been!! Have you been enjoying the amazing spring weather, or do you live on the other side of the world? Let me know :)

I have noticed how rewarding it is to write this blog for the past three weeks. I've been remembering all the happy moments so I can write about it. Which made me enjoy the happy moments more, and has made me specifically look for happiness and beauty. Try it and let me know!

Have a great first week of April, I'll see you next Monday,

Love,

Mia

March week 3

Goodbye another week! 

This week I did a few exciting things! On Wednesday I voted for the first time in my life! It was for the local elections, and because I now officially live in Amersfoort, I had to vote for that city. It felt kind of weird, because it would´ve been fun to vote for people I actually knew. Still, it was fun to do. I remember it being extremely fast, because I took out my earphones on my way in, letting my music (Kveikur by Sigur Rós) continue and on the way out the same song was still playing. I felt like a real adult. Then I went to get chips. The next day, Thursday, had the most amazing weather of the whole week. I had a presentation on Runes, which I NAILED. I absolutely hate having to speak in front of an audience. Luckily there are only about ten people in my class, so it wasn’t even that big of a group to speak to. Anyway, I survived and after that I took the weekend off. I have an exam at the end of next week, so after writing this I have to go study very hard for that.

The whole week I kept seeing blossoms everywhere. If there’s one thing I love, it’s blossoms. It was great! I didn’t take any pictures, unfortunately, but here’s one I made last year with my analogue camera:

On Friday I got home and my new book had arrived! The Cracks in the Kingdom by Jaclyn Moriarty. I talked about my excitement last week, you can check that out. I’m about halfway through it now, which simultaneously saddens and excites me. I have been reading all day yesterday (Sunday). I haven’t read that much in literally months and it felt so good to get completely lost in a story as absurd and brilliant as this one. Moriarty does this thing where her characters become a part of you while you read. They become your best friends, the setting of the story becomes your hometown. When you read ‘the bakery’ you know where that is and who owns the bakery and what buildings are next to the bakery. That is one reason why I love Moriarty’s books so much. Another reason is that the words are like magic. Everything does something. Every sentence has something clever in it. I just love it. Go read.

I felt very inspired to make some 'drawings' with crayons. I'm not very good at art but I feel like showing them anyway. 

After dinner my mum and I took a walk while the sun was setting and I made some cool pictures of it. It was a nice evening to walk in. 

Today, Monday, I accidentally cosplayed Rose Tyler. I just grabbed my English-flag-shirt out of my wardrobe and remembered I have a leather jacket too and I just became Rose. Here’s me awkwardly trying to look companion-like. 

Song of the Week: Radiohead - Optimistic

I hope you have a great last week of March!

Love,
Mia

March week 2

So last week the weather was GREAT. Like ‘SUMMER IS ON THE WAY’-great. That gave me a huge boost of energy and creativity. The weather today is less great, but that has given me the opportunity to write down the things that made me happy the past week.

I bought awesome socks. I actually bought them a few weeks ago, but I only started to appreciate them this week. I love them. Look at my socks. My socks are awesome.

I also passed the ice cream section in my supermarket this week and saw that the Ben&Jerry’s were temporarily cheaper than normal. So I had to buy one. Ice cream is my favourite food. I picked up the Vermonster flavour. It has maple syrup, caramelized pecans and a caramel swirl. Oh man. It is THE best ice cream I’ve ever tasted. It melts on your tongue and the caramelized pecans stay behind and are delicious and just hmmmm. So good, trust me. Buy it. Now. I’ve had it every day for the past week.

X

When it starts to feel like spring and summer are very close, I start to feel more colourful. That leads me to two awesome things that have occupied my mind last week: nail polish and The Colours of Madeleine. I love nail polish, but I hadn’t been wearing it a lot over the past months. Now I’m very excited about the colourfulness nail polish gives your outfit, and how much it makes me feel like summer is really very much coming. 

And The Colours of Madeleine. Yessss. I’ve written about Jaclyn Moriarty before, read it here. She’s an Australian author and wrote The Year of Secret Assignments, among other awesome books. She is my all time favourite author. She has started a new trilogy: The Colours of Madeleine. I read the first when I got if for my birthday from my sister: A Corner of White. I fell in love with it on the first page. It was so good. And a few weeks ago part two came out: The Cracks in the Kingdom. I ordered it the second I found out about it. It comes out in The Netherlands on the 25^th of March, so I’ll have to be patient for a few more days. Moriarty has also been writing a few blog posts. She interacts with the people who comment on them, which made me love her even more. She even responded to my (unfortunately anonymous) comment on this post. The way she writes is just so funny and generally happy (fits my blog, you see).

Of course I haven’t been all creative and cool all week. I’ve been watching a LOT of George Gently. I watched the first episode when it was on the Belgian tv and fell in love. I’d seen one episode before, but never really continued watching. Now I just had to. Quick synopsis: a detective series that takes place in the north of England, about a detective chief inspector and a detective sergeant. Solving murders basically.
I am especially in love with John Bacchus. He is a racist, sexist idiot but I love him. His character is so interesting, so real. Lee Ingleby is incredibly good. Gently is of course an essential character, he’s the only reason Bacchus isn’t a super corrupt policeman yet. I love the dynamic between the two, and the historic facts about England 1964 are super educational. They really emphasise the real problems: sexism, racism, homophobia. John is always the problem, but his being wrong gets pointed out. And apart from that it’s just a really good detective series. Would recommend.
I've also watched Penelope yesterday. It has it all: James McAvoy, Simon Woods, Peter Dinklage, awesome outfits, an amazingly decorated bedroom, even Hoppipolla. If you want me to go into detail on this film, let me know. But it was awesome.

Song of the week: My IT’S SUMMER song
Buildings and Mountains by The Republic Tigers

Alright I've been loving a lot this week I see. More next week?

See ya then!
Love,
Mia